Managing the Intangible Asset.

About fifty years ago a superintendent of apprentices taught his very junior people that management involves the use of four resources: men, machines, materials and methods [1]. (More recently this author added ˵money″ to those four, but that is another story.) All four are assets and require maintenance, one way or another, and while much has been written about maintaining machines, and, indeed, methods, there seems to be little about maintaining people. The paper following from this abstract shows why ˵peoplemaintenance″ is needed, examines some of the difficulties (such as the wide range of levels in an engineering organisation), shows the risks in doing, or not doing, this form of asset management, suggests how the asset may be condition-monitored and what standards may be used, and points out the cost of good people-maintenance (and the cost of not maintaining the people asset). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]